If you’ve been keeping up with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz,
you know he’s recently been battering President Obama for his
association with the anti-Israel group Media Matters. While
Dershowitz is a Democrat who supported Obama in 2008, he’s demanded
the president cut ties with the left-wing media watchdog group, whose
writers have made anti-Semitic remarks.

Today, Dershowitz took it a step further, promising to turn the issue
into an election matter during an interview with WABC’s Aaron Klein
(via BuzzFeed):

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a leading Democratic lawyer
who takes a hawkish line on Israel, has declared a personal war on
the liberal group Media Matters, which has branched out into sharp
criticism of Israel.

“Not only will [the Media Matters controversy] be an election matter,
I will personally make it an election matter,” Dershowitz, a
professor at Harvard Law School, told WABC’s Aaron Klein today. …

“I don’t know whether President Obama has any idea that Media Matters
has turned the corner against Israel in this way,” he said. “I can
tell you this, he will know very shortly because I am beginning a
serious campaign on this issue and I will not let it drop until and
unless [writer and activist MJ] Rosenberg is fired from Media
Matters, or Media Matters changes its policy or the White House
disassociates itself from Media Matters.”

Dershowitz launched his campaign today with a column denouncing Media
Matters’ use of the term “Israel Firster” in the New York Daily News.
The law professor has successfully battled left-wing anti-Israel
groups in the past, including J Street. Here’s what Dershowitz had to
say about J Street during a debate with its president, Jeremy Ben-
Ami, last year:

“The reason you have to attack me is very simple: I am J Street’s
nightmare. Let me tell you why. Because I am a liberal Democratic Jew
who strongly opposes the settlements, who strongly favors a two-state
solution, who supports Obama, who supports Hillary Clinton, who
supports Petraeus, but who does not support J Street. You have to
create the illusion that everybody against J Street is a member of
the right, and is part of the Sarah Palin-Rush Limbaugh group. And
you can’t explain me.”

A vocal campaign against Media Matters, especially if it includes
other prominent Democrats in the Jewish community, could cause major
problems for Media Matters and increase pressure on Obama to distance
himself from the group.

But it will also be a test of whether Democrats are willing to call
out anti-Semitism and Israel-bashing within their own ranks. After
former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block criticized Media Matters staffers
for making anti-Semitic comments late last year, the Truman Institute
cut its association with him, claiming Block was trying to shut
down “honest debate.” Will Democratic Party institutions side with
Dershowitz on this issue? Or will they continue to stay silent on the
uncomfortable but very real Israel problem at Media Matters?